Running the Sahara reviews
Review by on 28 Sep 2008
Amazing Documentary. I cannot believe what these men accomplished on this quest.
Amazing Documentary. I cannot believe what these men accomplished on this quest.
Review by on 26 Sep 2008
Directed by James Moll and narrated and executive-produced by Matt Damon, RUNNING THE SAHARA is an uplifting and socially aware documentary chronicling the 111-day coast to coast run across the Sahara Desert completed by a team of three experienced runners (Charlie Engle from America, Ray Zahab from Canada, and Kevin Lin from Taiwan).
Initiated by Ray simply because no human being has ever done it before, the three agree to undertake this challenge together. Each has their own character and motivation, but they accomplish the expedition collectively. This film details the journey’s physical and emotional impact on the runners. It is about team spirit, challenge, discovery, and most importantly believing and materialising one’s dream.
The group’s incredible voyage, which covers six countries, is met with various problems (the heat, sand storms, unknown visa and terrorist situation, injuries, and even self-doubt). Yet their strenuous experience is not without joyous and touching moments such as the arrival of their family, encouragement from friends, and the village children’s greeting and running along with them.
This character-driven film provides a complex picture of culturally vibrant Africa – its mysteriously beautiful but extremely merciless desert, and its acute water problems (evidenced through the seven-year-old boy left alone in the wilderness to wait for the return of his water-searching parents, and the primitive well-digging method). With the charitable H2O Africa campaigning for clean water being a component of the expedition, it is for sure that to ease the water crisis in the Continent will no longer remain an unfulfilled mission impossible.
Pei-Yin Lin, Festival Daily
Directed by James Moll and narrated and executive-produced by Matt Damon, RUNNING THE SAHARA is an uplifting and socially aware documentary chronicling the 111-day coast to coast run across the Sahara Desert completed by a team of three experienced runners (Charlie Engle from America, Ray Zahab from Canada, and Kevin Lin from Taiwan). Initiated by Ray simply because no human being has ever done it before, the three agree to undertake this challenge together. Each has their own character and motivation, but they accomplish the expedition collectively. This film details the journey’s physical and emotional impact on the runners. It is about team spirit, challenge, discovery, and most importantly believing and materialising one’s dream.
The group’s incredible voyage, which covers six countries, is met with various problems (the heat, sand storms, unknown visa and terrorist situation, injuries, and even self-doubt). Yet their strenuous experience is not without joyous and touching moments such as the arrival of their family, encouragement from friends, and the village children’s greeting and running along with them.
This character-driven film provides a complex picture of culturally vibrant Africa – its mysteriously beautiful but extremely merciless desert, and its acute water problems (evidenced through the seven-year-old boy left alone in the wilderness to wait for the return of his water-searching parents, and the primitive well-digging method). With the charitable H2O Africa campaigning for clean water being a component of the expedition, it is for sure that to ease the water crisis in the Continent will no longer remain an unfulfilled mission impossible.
Pei-Yin Lin, Festival Daily
Review by on 24 Sep 2008
Really liked it! Starting with the pictures of the beautiful Sahara, people and finishing with characters and their jokes, sometimes really sarcastic ones, which makes the movie much more interesting and puts in a higher level!
Really liked it! Starting with the pictures of the beautiful Sahara, people and finishing with characters and their jokes, sometimes really sarcastic ones, which makes the movie much more interesting and puts in a higher level!
Film details
Running the Sahara
DOCUMENTARIES
Director: James Moll
Actor: Matt Damon
Actor: Matt Damon
USA, 2008.
103 mins. English.
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